Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoFred Squillante | DISPATCHAndrew Sweat, left, is learning a lot about being a linebacker from Ohio State assistant coach and three-time Super Bowl winner Mike Vrabel.

Mike Vrabel is still learning on the job as a first-year assistant coach at Ohio State, but the linebackers are learning from him, too.

When he talks, senior Andrew Sweat said, the whole room listens, and for good reason.

“He won three Super Bowls,” Sweat said.

As a player, Vrabel — a former Ohio State All-America defensive end and the best friend of first-year coach Luke Fickell — has done what current players can only dream of. In 14 NFL seasons, he made one Pro Bowl and gained fame as a swing man for some of the New England Patriots’ better defenses.

But Fickell knew that coaching would be something different.

“I just wanted to make sure as we went into camp that he had an idea what 17-, 18-year-old guys are going to react like, respond like, at times,” Fickell said. “He understood that, and I think it’s shown.”

Vrabel came in with a theme in mind, coaching players to their potential.

“We don’t want everybody necessarily to be the best, we just want their best effort,” he said. “If we can get that every day, we’ll be good.”

Fickell remembered going through the transition from player to coach in the late 1990s, especially after gaining his first full-time job as an assistant at Akron in 2000. He’s watching Vrabel do the same.

“I think it’s the whole concept of switching sides, and realizing that when you look at it from a coaching perspective, you look at it as the whole team,” Fickell said. “Not that you didn’t do that (as a player) in the NFL, but you probably were a little bit more specific in what you were doing. … That’s a job, and you need to keep your job, and you’ve got to make sure you are doing what you’re supposed to do.”

But for an assistant coach to keep his job, he has to get players to perform, even if some barely need to shave.

“It’s working with 17-, 18-, 19-year-old guys, young men, and understanding they are going to have ups and downs, and they’re not professionals, and there is a little bit more of an emotional side to things,” Fickell said. “I think he’s done a really good job with that.”

As for helping teach his players, Vrabel indicated that has been his biggest adjustment. In the NFL, for example, the quarterback usually runs only out of desperation. But in the college game, he runs by design in many offenses.

“Coach Fickell has helped me understand the college game,” Vrabel said. “The technique, I obviously think I can coach that. I think I can coach fundamentals.

“But it’s a different game with the quarterback and the one-running back stuff. The two-back stuff I can handle, the third-down stuff I think I can handle. But the zone and the zone read and things like that and where we’re fitting, I think he has been real helpful transitioning me into this game.”

Vrabel, in the meantime, has been imparting some of the tricks that helped him be one of the more effective pass rushers of the past decade in the NFL.

“He’s helped us with our hands, with our blitzing,” Sweat said. “He was a great player for the Patriots off the edge, blitzing. I have learned a lot about my hands, how to use them, how to get the running back’s hands off of you, how to maybe not engage the linemen but how to slap their hands down and get around them.”

Anyone watching practice can see and hear Vrabel’s enthusiasm for his new job .

“His competitive nature, that’s the thing you can’t hide,” Fickell said. “When you get out there and start to practice or you start to play, you can see what somebody is all about. Whether it’s on the field, whether it’s off the field, those kinds of things rub off. And that’s what we hope to continue to rub off from all the coaches, but that’s something I think he’s brought a little bit more energy in that area.”